Quotes About Contentment

So many hours lost wishing for things I could never have. Take me for a warning, Julia. Do not long for what you cannot have. Accept what is and thank God for it, before he sees fit to take it from you.

Indiscretions that would only burden a wife. He was frequently unfaithful, and that was something I was perfectly happy to accept." "Happy!" I exclaimed. I could not imagine any woman being content to have the man she loved warming another's bed.

I would earnestly warn you against trying to find out the reason for and explanation of everything . . . To try and find out the reason for everything is very dangerous and leads to nothing but disappointment and dissatisfaction, unsettling your mind and in the end making you miserable. —QUEEN VICTORIA TO HER GRANDDAUGHTER, PRINCESS VICTORIA OF HESSE, 22 AUGUST 1883

I would earnestly warn you against trying to find out the reason for and explanation of everything . . . To try and find out the reason for everything is very dangerous and leads to nothing but disappointment and dissatisfaction, unsettling your mind and in the end making you miserable.

Brisbane and I passed a thoroughly satisfactory and entirely private evening in the solitude of our room. "Thank God for stout stone walls," he said at one point, and I heartily agreed.

Stop wasting prayer on things you don't need help with. Prayers aren't for wants. They are for giving thanks. God will supply the needs that you cannot obtain on your own by default, so there is no need to ask. Just thank.

Stop worrying about what might not happen and allow what is to be.

Love can come when you're already who you are, when you're filled with you. Not when you look to someone else to fill the empty space.

It occurred to me then that a lot of life was either about wanting and not having, or having and not wanting.

Just that, is one of those uncommon moments, those times when you don't wish for something else, for even one thing to be different; when you have no other needs or worries, where your insides are calm, and everything you were ever restless about, anything that had ever given you angst, is quieted to stillness. No steel ball in your chest, no breathless fear. No blue numbness of nearly passing out, no nagging doubts of the backstage mind. All of that, forgotten. It is just rightness, so rare.

Sometimes I've even wished there was a human pause button, where you could choose some point in your life where you could stay always.

Whipped cream can remind you why it's good to be alive.

But, dear God, don't listen to me. I'm an old lady in the middle of nowhere without a real toilet.

He was like one great big Sunday afternoon -- the kind where you stay in your PJs and watch movies and eat popcorn. Where life is at it's uncomplicated best.

This is what I know. Don't settle for 40, 50, even 80 percent. A relationship—it shouldn't be too small or too tight or even a little scratchy. It shouldn't be embarrassing or uncomfortable or downright ugly. It shouldn't take up space in your closet out of a guilty conscience or convenience or a moment of desire. Do you hear me? It should be perfect for you. It should be lasting.

And if you could make a choice, then why not pick happiness?

Maybe she's meant to be alone. Unmarried. Deliciously free of people's expectations. It sort of sounds like heaven, actually.

And maybe that's the closest definition for the word we can get, a life equation: An absence of wanting equals happiness.

When I stood there, looking out the window at the raindrops and thinking of everything I lost, I forgot everything I have. When I remembered the things I have, I forgot I lost anything at all.

Some days you live in pajamas, and your hair kind-of has that Albert Einstein look.

Happiness is a hot bath on a Sunday afternoon.

As long as you're with you, that's all that matters.

Give yourself permission to enjoy this present moment. Resist the urge to fill it with I need to's, I shoulds, I coulds. Trying to fill all your present moments is impeding the natural flow of life.

The eye of a man is never satisfied with what it sees.